


Baker's Assistant

by frozenCinders



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: And Now For Something Completely Different, Fractureverse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25868299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenCinders/pseuds/frozenCinders
Summary: Calem is quite good at baking. Not so much at lifting heavy stand mixers.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Baker's Assistant

Oh, he hates this part.

The dry ingredients are mixed and set off to the side. Next, he has to beat the egg whites, which is fine. The only issue is that the mixer is obnoxiously heavy and, to make matters worse, he stores it in a low cabinet.

Calem stands back and brings a hand to his chin. He puts the carton of egg whites back in the refrigerator and covers the flour mixture with a plate that perfectly meets the edges of the mixing bowl. That should do, for the moment. Time to step out.

Having long mastered his favorite means of transport, Calem has no need for cranks or special rooms. As he steps out of his front door, the world jerks with a quick twist and suddenly, he's stepping out of an entirely different building. He doesn't visit zone 0 often, but it acts as a home for only two people, one of whom has both the muscle to lift the mixer for him and the blind obedience to do Calem a favor without much questioning. It's certainly not the Judge.

Having exited from the clock room, Calem takes a left and begins climbing the floors of the borderline skyscraper that houses the Libero. Two floors up, he lies dead to the world on a sofa barely big enough to fit him. He is collected neatly on it, lying on his back with his hands interlinked over his stomach.

Calem opens his mouth to start trying to rouse the Libero from his slumber, but it falls shut in a frown when he gets a look at his face. There is a bruise on his jaw, too big and too dark to be from mere clumsiness. He gets the feeling he knows who it was from, since the ghosts are rarely capable of dealing significant damage to the Libero. It's just a matter of why.

"... Hey. Heeeyyyyy," Calem calls, though he is polite enough to start with his inside voice. "Hey! Libero! Wake up, sleepyhead! Wake up! Hey!"

His voice raises in volume as he babbles on just to make noise. Within a minute, the Libero begins stirring. Calem pauses, thinking he'll get up. The Libero instead turns away from Calem and covers his ears.

"What! You can't do that!" Calem complains, tugging at the Libero's arm. He puts up an impressive resistance, the limb hardly budging even with both of Calem's hands linked around his elbow.

"What?" the Libero finally mumbles.

"I need you to lift something heavy for me in zone 3."

"... Seriously?"

"Come on! Please!"

He sighs deeply, sounding very much like he's about to fall back asleep, but then he sits up. He takes an extra few seconds to fully wake up, and then he's standing.

"Yes! Thank you! Wanna take a shortcut to my house?"

"Shortcut?"

"Like this!"

Calem drags the Libero down to the first floor and lets the world spin as he runs through the doorway, causing the building to adjoin to Calem's home for but a split second. The Libero looks behind him, staring out into the streets of Linde in silent confusion before simply closing the door and following Calem to the kitchen.

"It's just this mixer here. Thank you!" Calem says, opening the cabinet and pointing at the mixer in question. The Libero crouches down and lifts it, letting it thud dully on the counter.

"Am I done?" he asks. Calem puffs up his cheeks at him.

"I'm making angel food cupcakes," he says, ignoring the question. "Wanna mix the egg whites for me?"

"Angel food..? Like angel hair..."

"No, not like angel hair!"

"Why not?"

"... Because it's not pasta?!"

"Angel hair is pasta?"

Calem blanches.

"Libero... do you eat?" he asks, genuinely.

"Yeah."

"Okay, well, I'm making cupcakes, not noodles! Do you know how to work the mixer?"

The Libero investigates the stand mixer.

"I can figure it out, I think," he says.

"Okay, well, there's speed settings on the side there. Attach the bowl and the whisk and lock it and I'll measure the stuff."

Calem takes the carton back out of the fridge and pours the egg whites into a measuring cup. He fills it perfectly to the 1 cup mark and waits for the bowl to be locked in before pouring it in and measuring another half of a cup to add.

"Okay, now set it to low and I'll start adding in the rest of the wet stuff."

The Libero fiddles with the settings on the side and stares completely mesmerized at the whisk as it mixes the egg whites. His eyes don't move even as Calem adds in other ingredients, only breaking out of his trance once he starts emptying half a cup of sugar into the bowl.

"That's not wet," he points out.

"Well, it is now! Switch it to medium while I do this."

The mixer speeds up and Calem carefully shakes the sugar into the bowl in little increments. When he's done, Calem sets it to high and the Libero's hand falls from the counter as he watches the mixture slowly transform into a meringue. Calem checks to make sure he didn't forget to preheat the oven or line the muffin tins and then stares with the Libero until he deems the meringue done.

"I wanna do the rest," Calem tells the Libero, who is much too close to the mixer.

"What's that smell?" he asks.

"There's lots of smells."

"The..."

The Libero trails off, unsure of how to describe it. Calem hazards a guess and pulls the almond extract back out of the cabinet.

"This one?" he asks, carefully opening it and placing it under the Libero's nose. He reels back at first, but then he takes the little bottle and holds it there.

"Yeah," he says.

Calem leaves him to whatever it is he thinks he's doing to instead focus on folding in the dry ingredients. He's demonstrably ginger about it, but the Libero is entirely distracted by the almond extract.

"Don't drink it," Calem warns in advance.

"Oh."

"Were you going to?!"

"I'm not."

He was thinking about it.

"Jeez! Give that back!"

The Libero hands over the extract and Calem twists the cap back on before hurriedly returning to the meringue to spoon it into the muffin tins. Once all the cups are full, Calem places them all in the oven on two levels and sets a timer for them.

"Phew. All done," he sighs. "You can go home and go back to sleep now."

"Huh?"

"They'll be ready tomorrow!"

"The timer says 18 minutes," he points out.

"Well yeah, but they just kinda taste like eggs when they're fresh. I'll bring them to you tomorrow, promise!"

Calem holds up his pinky. The Libero lifts his own hand only to examine it in confusion, and Calem grabs it to interlink their little fingers himself.

"See? Promise!"

"Is it really what angels eat?" the Libero asks, oblivious to the pinky swear.

"Yes. Angels love the stuff, especially when I make it," Calem fibs harmlessly.

"I don't think you know any angels," the Libero says.

"Depends on what "angel" means. Do you think you're a human?"

"I'm a purifier."

"What's that, though?"

"... A purifier."

The eye slanted down his cheek squints open, an ironic affirmation of his supposed status.

"Regular people have two eyes. Sometimes less!"

"And sometimes... more?"

"Nope!"

"Then purifiers aren't normal, I guess," the Libero shrugs.

"Well I think it's angel food for an angel."

Calem smiles at the unconvinced Libero. Giving up, the Libero takes the long way home, presumably to lay back down on that couch. Tomorrow, Calem will bring delicious treats to both him and the Judge. He can't break a pinky swear, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: the bruise is from toccata. he and the libero have some very rough training sessions from time to time, though toccata apologized profusely when he realized how hard he'd decked the libero.


End file.
